*3.2. PLES Transfer Matrix Analysis*

According to Table 3, all four types of PLES have different degrees of transfer in and out of each other. The area where PLES type conversion occurs is 10,686.02 km2, accounting for about 1.34% of the total area. The amounts of EPS and PES are larger than the amounts of the other three types of spatial transformation, with a total of 4481.32 and 4276.73 km2, respectively. Among them, the type shift between EPS and PES is especially drastic. The transfer volume of EPS to PES is about 2910.06 km2, amounting to 64.94% of its total transfer

volume. The transfer from PES to EPS is also greater, about 2489.50 km2, accounting for about 58.21% of its total spatial transfer. In comparison, the transfer between LPS and ES is more stable. The transfer from ES to LPS is 215.79 km2, while the transfer from LPS to ES is the smallest among all PLES types, with an area of 11.15 km2.


**Table 3.** PLES transfer matrix for 2010–2015 (km2).

Note: PES: production–ecological space; LPS: living–production space; ES: ecological space; EPS: ecological–production space.

According to Table 4, the area where PLES type transfer occurred is 64,586.46 km2, accounting for about 8.12% of the total area, which shows a substantial growth trend, compared with the PLES transfer from 2010 to 2015. In terms of the proportion of PLES type transfer, it is roughly similar to the percentage in 2010–2015. PES and EPS are less stable, as their transfer to other PLES types has the largest areas of 29,715.94 and 25,050.59 km, respectively. Among them, the transfer from EPS to PES is about 20,547.12 km2, occupying more than 80% of their total transfer. The area where PES transferred to EPS remains the largest among all PLES types, about 23,211.14 km2, taking up about 78.11% of its total transfer. In comparison, the transfer volume between LPS and ES is smaller, with 664.27 km<sup>2</sup> transferred from ES to LPS, while the transfer volume from LPS to ES is only 212.07 km2, which is the smallest area among all PLES types.



The PLES distribution of the Yellow River Basin in 2025 was predicted with the CA–Markov model. From the PLES area transfer matrix of the Yellow River Basin for 2018–2025 shown in Table 5, it is evident that the PLES transfer area will continue to grow substantially, to about 205,740.87 km2, and the average annual PLES transfer area is 29,391.43 km2, which is about 1.36 times that of 2015–2018, but the PLES transfer growth rate indicates a decreasing trend. With the same pattern of PLES transfer changes in the cycles of 2010–2015 and 2015–2018, EPS and PES are less stable, and the spatial type transfers in and out are relatively large. Among them, EPS and PES transfer areas are 87,864.46 and 83,044.38 km2, respectively, both of which account for more than 40% of the total transfer volume. In comparison, LPS and ES are relatively stable, for which the area transferred from LPS to ES is the smallest, only 272.25 km2, accounting for about 0.13% of the total transferred area.


**Table 5.** PLES transfer matrix for 2018–2025 (km2).
